Bernard raises questions about conflict of interest involving McLean

Former permanent secretary in the Ministry of Education Dean-Roy Bernard has raised questions about conflict of interest involving then chief education officer and current holder of the post, Dr Grace McLean. 

In a submission to Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee, Bernard said that “the husband of the CEO [chief education officer ] may have deprived the CMU [Caribbean Maritime University] of much of its resources and show breaches in the policies of the CMU as shown in the [auditor general’s] report.

A special audit of the CMU by the Auditor General's Department, which highlighted several breaches at the institution, was tabled in Parliament in January.

Bernard also mentioned that Eron McLean had oversight for the canteen concessionaire operations, procurement, and transportation at CMU.

He noted that one canteen concessionaire was found to have operated without a contract and had been selected in breach of procurement guidelines. 

The same contractor, it was revealed, got preferential terms over the other three, Bernard added.

“This concessionaire was not charged a concession fee, was never charged for water usage, for use of cooking facilities, electricity, or garbage disposal. Mr McLean must account directly as to why these preferential terms for just one concessionaire and be made to answer if he has a vested interest in the ownership and operations of this concessionaire’s business and benefited.”

He questioned, in his submission, if a farm owned by Mr McLean supplied goods to the canteen concessionaire. 

He also wants to know if Mr McLean used the university’s workers to reap goods from his farm and used CMU’s transportation to move the items to the canteen facility at the university to support this concessionaire’s operations.

Is he the directing mind behind any canteen operation at the CMU? Bernard queried.

Bernard went on to say that he would have required the chief education officer to respond satisfactorily on her knowledge of these matters and “her efforts to disclose her interest and her benefits from this glaring conflict.”

Asked why he did not take action in this matter, Bernard said he was not aware of any of these issues, noting that if he had known he would have referred the matter to the Integrity Commission to determine whether “McLean deliberately failed to fully disclose her income and assets and whether she is part of an enterprise to conceal certain income from the commission.”   

McLean responds

Responding to the claims, Dr McLean said that as chief education officer, she worked closely with the then PS who was Bernard.

In Photo: Acting Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Education, Dr Grace McLean

She said that matters relating to tertiary institutions such as the University of the West Indies, the University of Technology, Jamaica, and the CMU went directly to the permanent secretary.

Dr McLean said that she has worked with about four or five permanent secretaries and that was the approach that had been utilised.

“I could not, with any reasonableness, know that my husband has been working at CMU for the last 10 years and put myself up to have direct responsibility over CMU,” said Dr McLean.

The acting permanent secretary said that she did not approve funds to the university or gave instructions to the tertiary body.

“So I really was not aware that I was fully in charge of CMU until the matters are specifically spoken about.”

She said that her husband has been working at the CMU since 2010.

“He is prepared to tell his story, if requested, in terms of the allegations that I heard member [Peter] Bunting raised, as I am not privy to the report that you are currently reading from.”

Bernard thanked the auditor general and the Financial Investigation Division for the work done to date.

The former permanent secretary argued that many of the inherent weaknesses highlighted in governance operations at the CMU were structural and systemic after recurring overtime.

This, he said, required a complete overhauling exercise to redirect the operations of the institution and fix its governance.

“Many of these require personnel changes at the highest level, some of which we have seen but some still yet to be made to remove the glaring conflicts of interest and to renew the trust of the staff and students at the institution and within the Ministry of Education, Youth and Information,” he said.

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